The ruling Frelimo Party has won
a crushing victory in the general elections held on 1 - 2 December, with 62
per cent of the vote, compared with its nearest rivals, Renamo, which only received
29.7 per cent. As a result, Frelimo's parliamentary representation grows from
133 to 160 seats out of a total of 250 seats in the Assembly of the Republic.
Renamo gain the remaining 90 seats, a drop of 27 seats from the last elections
held in 1999. None of the other 18 parties received enough votes to gain the
five per cent minimum for parliamentary representation.

In the presidential election, Frelimo
candidate Armando Guebuza did even better, receiving slightly more than two
million votes - representing 63.7 per cent of the vote. Renamo's Afonso Dhlakama
received 998,000 votes - 31.7 per cent of the vote.

The results were announced by Mozambique's
National Elections Commission (CNE) on 21 December, four days later than the
legal deadline of 17 December. The CNE chairperson, Rev Arao Litsuri, blamed
the delay on "rain and logistical problems". However, the determining
factor has been the deep distrust inside the highly politicised electoral bodies,
between members appointed by the ruling Frelimo Party and those appointed by
Renamo. The vote tabulation in the provinces was repeatedly delayed by Renamo
boycotts and sabotage, including Renamo officials disappearing with keys to
warehouses where electoral materials were stored.

Litsuri announced that 3.33 million
people voted in the presidential election, and slightly fewer in the parliamentary
poll. This turnout was 36.4 per cent of the registered electorate. However,
this is based on the electoral register which puts the electorate at 9.1 million.
This is a grossly inflated figure caused by duplication of names, and the lack
of a system to remove from the register the names of voters who have died. A
realistic figure for the true size of the electorate is 7.7 million. If this
figure is used, turnout rises to a more respectable 43 per cent.

Comparing these elections to the
1999 poll, it is clear that the Frelimo vote held up reasonably well. Frelimo
took 1.9 million votes this time, and two million in 1999. Guebuza won two million
votes in 2004, and the current president, Joaquim Chissano, won 2.3 million
in 1999.

However, the Renamo vote has collapsed
- from 1.6 million in 1999 to just over 900,000 now. The fall in Dhlakama's
own vote is even more striking - it has halved, falling from 2.1 million in
1999 to 998,000 in 2004.

The low turnout is largely a Renamo
phenomenon, with its supporters failing to go to the polling stations. Frelimo
mobilised its core votes, Renamo did not.

Election results in detail

Presidential election

Votes

Per cent

Number who voted

3,329,177

Number of valid
votes

3,144,168

94.44

Blank votes

96,684

2.91

Invalid votes

81,315

2.65

Candidates

Armando Guebuza
(Frelimo)

2,004,226

63.74

Afonso Dhlakama
(Renamo)

998,059

31.74

Raul Domingos (PDD)

85,815

2.73

Yaqub Sibindy (PIMO)

28,656

0.91

Carlos Reis (MBG)

27,412

0.87

Parliamentary election

Number who voted

3,321,926

Number of valid votes

3,045,429

91.68

Blank votes

166,540

5.01

Invalid votes

109,957

3.31

Parties

Frelimo

1,889,054

62.03

Renamo

905,289

29.73

Party of Peace, Democracy and
Development (PDD)

60,758

2.00

Party of Liberty and Solidarity
(PAZS)

20,686

0.88

National Reconciliation Party
(PARENA)

18,220

0.60

Independent Party (PIMO)

17,960

0.59

Social Broadening Party (PASOMO)

15,740

0.52

Labour Party (PT)

14,242

0.47

Social Liberal Party (SOL)

13,915

0.46

Ecological Party-Land Movement

12,985

0.40

Movement for Change and Good
Governance (MBG)

11,059

0.36

Democratic Union (UD)

10,310

0.34

Greens of Mozambique (PVM)

9,950

0.33

Liberal and Democratic Party
(PALMO)

9,263

0.30

Democratic Reconciliation Party
(PAREDE)

9,026

0.30

Mozambique Salvation Union
(USAMO)

8,661

0.29

Broad Opposition Front (FAO)

7,591

0.25

Democratic and Liberal Party
(PADELIMO)

3,720

0.12

United Congress of Democrats
(CDU)

1,252

0.04

Popular Democratic Party (PPD)

448

0.01

To obtain seats in parliament, a
party must have at least five per cent of the national vote. Only Frelimo and
Renamo meet this requirement, and the seats in the future parliament, the Assembly
of the Republic, will be divided as follows (the figures for the parliament
elected in 1999 are given in brackets):

Province

Seats

Frelimo

Renamo

Niassa

12 (13)

9 (6)

3 (7)

Cabo Delgado

22 (22)

18 (16)

4 (6)

Nampula

50 (50)

27 (24)

23 (26)

Zambezia

48 (49)

19 (15)

29 (34)

Tete

18 (18)

14 (8)

4 (10)

Manica

14 (15)

7 (5)

7 (10)

Sofala

22 (21)

6 (4)

18 (17)

Inhambane

16 (17)

15 (13)

1 (4)

Gaza

17 (16)

17 (16)

0 (0)

Maputo province

13 (13)

12 (12)

1 (1)

Maputo city

16 (16)

14 (14)

2 (2)

Emigrants

Africa

1 (-)

1 (-)

0 (-)

Europe

1 (-)

1 (-)

0 (-)

Total

250 (250)

160 (133)

90 (117)

Fraud fails to affect overall
result

The statement read by Litsuri said
nothing at all about the well-proven incidents of fraud, mainly in the province
of Tete, where dozens of polling stations claimed impossible turnouts of 90
per cent, 100 per cent, or in some cases more than 100 per cent. In the vast
majority of such cases, the beneficiary of the fraud was Frelimo - though there
is one case in which the beneficiary was Renamo.

But these abuses were on far too
small a scale to affect the result. All the votes in these tainted polling stations
could be transferred to Renamo, and it would make no difference apart from giving
Renamo a couple of extra parliamentary seats. Guebuza would still be the next
president, and Frelimo's parliamentary majority would still be impregnable.

The eight Renamo-appointed members
of the CNE all boycotted the announcement of the results, and refused to sign
the minutes of a CNE meeting on the subject.

The only Renamo member present at
the ceremony was Dhlakama's election agent, Francisco Machambisse, who told
reporters "these were the worst elections ever held in Mozambique".
His main complaint was of police harassment of Renamo polling agents during
the two voting days. "So many people were arrested!", he exclaimed.

The police say that only 14 people
were arrested in the entire country on 1-2 December, for illegal campaigning
at the polling stations and other electoral offences. Observer groups, however,
confirm some police harassment of Renamo polling agents, notably in the northern
district of Angoche. However, the vast majority of Renamo polling agents signed
polling station minutes and spent the night of 1 December beside the ballot
boxes.

Machambisse said he did not know
what Renamo would do next. The party's top leadership would meet, and discuss
all the documents received from the CNE, he said.

The likelihood of Renamo accepting
the results is minimal, since Dhlakama, over a week ago, demanded that these
elections be scrapped and new ones be held.

Frelimo has dismissed such calls
as the sour grapes of a bad loser. Overjoyed at the scale of its victory, Frelimo
celebrated by throwing a party at its Central Committee headquarters in Maputo.

Observers accept result but point
to irregularities

The irregularities that marred the
elections "do not deprive the elections of their merit, nor do they change
the final results", declared Brazao Mazula, spokesperson of the most representative
group of Mozambican observers, the Electoral Observatory, at a press conference
on 21 December.

The Observatory, which is an alliance
of seven religious bodies and NGOs, including the Christian Council, the Catholic
Bishops Conference, the Islamic Council, and the Human Rights League, undertook
a parallel count, using a sample of 765 polling stations, chosen to be representative
of the entire country.

Mazula, who is also Vice-Chancellor
of Maputo's Eduardo Mondlane University, and chaired the country's first elections
commission, in 1994, confirmed that the sample count indicated an overwhelming
victory for the ruling Frelimo Party and its presidential candidate, Armando
Guebuza.

The Observatory's count indicated
that Guebuza had 63 per cent of the presidential vote, with his nearest rival,
Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, taking only 32
per cent. In the parliamentary election, the Observatory count projected Frelimo
to win 60 per cent, and Renamo 29 per cent.

Mazula pointed to serious difficulties
with the computer software used by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat
(STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service.

The software was approved and inspected
late, and was plagued with technical problems. But this could have no impact
on the Observatory's parallel count, which was based on the results sheets,
fixed on polling station walls and noted by some of the 1,550 observers which
the Observatory put into the field.

Mazula also criticised continuing
problems with the voters' roll. Some polling stations had the wrong voters'
registers, and at others voters, although they had a valid voter's card, could
not find their names in the register.

He criticised the location of some
stations which forced voters to walk for long distances, and the fact that,
due to logistical problems, there were other stations did not open until the
second day of voting (and, according to the electoral bodies themselves, 43
did not open at all).

Asked about the dozens of polling
stations with impossibly high turnouts of over 90 per cent (and, in some cases,
over 100 per cent), particularly in the western province of Tete, Mazula said
"It's legitimate to protest against this irregularity, and take it to the
Constitutional Council, which has the power to investigate".

Correcting such irregularities (which
could cost Renamo two or three parliamentary seats in Tete) "should be
done in accordance with the law and by the institutions", said Mazula.

He confirmed that one of the observers
from the Human Rights League, Julio Kulengo, had been detained for several days
in the Tete district of Zumbo.

The problem was one of accreditation.
The Tete provincial elections commission (CPE) "delayed in giving credentials
to observers". So Kulengo went to Zumbo with a paper credential stating
that he was a bona fide observer, but without the plastic badge that all observers
are supposed to carry.

Mazula said the Zumbo district administrator
claimed the credential was a forgery, and ordered Kulengo's detention. When
the Observatory discovered he was under arrest, it contacted the provincial
attorney's office in Tete city, which ordered his release.

Mazula said the Observatory concluded
that "the process could have been more transparent", but believed
that the irregularities detected did not change the final outcome.

He called on all parties not to react
violently to the official results. Those who disagreed with the results had
the opportunity to protest to the Constitutional Council.

The Observatory regarded demonstrations
- whether of joy or of protest - as a constitutional right, but insisted that
they should not degenerate into violence or bloodshed.

EU observers condemn irregularities

The head of the European Union Election
Observation Mission to Mozambique, Javier Pomes, on 20 December severely condemned
"the irregularities, some of them serious", that marred the elections.
Addressing a Maputo press conference, Pomes laid much of the blame at the door
of the National Elections Commission (CNE).

He was scathing about the CNE's performance.
"The CNE had the time to do better", Pomes said. "It had the
money, the resources and the advisors to do better. But it didn't use the time,
the resources and the advice properly".

Of the irregularities listed by the
EU mission, the worst is the significant number of polling stations that recorded
impossibly high turnouts of over 90 per cent, and in some cases over 100 percent.
"The electoral bodies have enough data on this", he said. "They
know about the polling stations with over 100 per cent turnout, where all the
votes go to the same candidate".

Pomes declined to describe this as
"fraud", though there seems no other word appropriate to describe
such obvious ballot box stuffing.

The EU statement distributed at the
conference noted "Given the low voter turn-out figures in the rest of the
country, the high turn-out figures in these regions were particularly surprising,
especially bearing in mind that these polling stations had voter lists dating
from 1999, which contain the names of deceased persons (estimated at more than
10 per cent)".

Asked by AIM what he thought could
be done about such polling stations, Pomes said there were two possibilities
- either exclude them from the final results, or order new elections at those
stations.

Pomes added that the irregularities
are not on such a scale as to affect the result of the elections. This is true,
in that the victory of Frelimo and Guebuza is too overwhelming to be affected
by false results from 100 or so polling stations. But the abuses in Changara
and parts of other Tete districts could affect the distribution of parliamentary
seats for the province. The gross exaggeration of the Frelimo vote in Tete could
be worth two, or even three parliamentary seats (although giving these seats
to the opposition would scarcely dent Frelimo's huge parliamentary majority).

The EU also noted problems with the
last minute computerisation. "The software did not function properly",
said Pomes.

The problem most frequently noted,
and claimed by the opposition as evidence of fraud, was that "the official
number of polling stations did not coincide with the number of result sheets
in the data base in most provinces".

This now seems the consequence of
haste and error, rather than of any conspiracy. But the result, as Pomes noted,
was that the correct number of polling stations had to be inserted manually.

On one key issue, the EU seems satisfied:
the observers were allowed full access to vote tabulation in the provinces and
centrally, which had seemed in doubt a month ago. The EU statement notes that
observers "could compare samples of results taken from posted results sheets
outside polling stations and in most provinces they obtained print outs of both
polling station results, and records of the progress of tabulation".

Pomes said that some EU observers
would remain to follow the final results, and the reaction of the Constitutional
Council, the body that must validate the results, to electoral complaints. He
urged the CNE and the Constitutional Council to "take seriously the issue
of irregularities, so that they are then able to take the pertinent decisions".

Defence Minister Tobias Dai reaffirmed
in Maputo on 17 December that the Mozambican government, in cooperation with
other partners, will remain involved in the pacification of Burundi. He was
speaking at Mavalane air base in Maputo, when he received the 228 Mozambican
troops who have returned from a 15 month peace keeping mission in Burundi.

The fact that the Mozambican armed
forces (FADM) could now send men on peace keeping missions elsewhere on the
continent was a tribute to the gains made in ten years of peace in Mozambique,
said Dai.

Three countries - Mozambique, South
Africa and Ethiopia - are involved in peace keeping in Burundi. Dai believed
their mission had proved successful, and was helping create in atmosphere of
peace in a country previously torn apart by a violent civil conflict.

Calisto Pemba, the commander of the
contingent, said that this was the first experience of its kind for the FADM,
and had provided valuable lessons for future peace-keeping missions. The FADM,
he added, was ready for further such challenges.

The Mozambican contingent had faced
problems due to the mountainous nature of the terrain in Burundi, said Pemba,
but "the determination of the FADM helped overcome all difficulties",
and all members of the mission returned alive.

These troops have now been replaced
by a second Mozambican contingent of about 200 men.

Mozambique's Supreme Court has ordered
a retrial of Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the man who
led the death squad that murdered the country's foremost investigative journalist,
Carlos Cardoso, on 22 November 2000.

This does not annul the sentence
of 28 years and six months that was passed against Anibalzinho, but merely suspends
it. Nor does it render the original proceedings, in which Anibalzinho was tried
in absentia, in any way invalid.

The Supreme Court took its decision
because it disagreed with the original trial judge, Augusto Paulino, on his
interpretation of a clause in the Penal Procedural Code concerning retrials
of accused persons who are absent.

Anibalzinho was illicitly released
from the Maputo top security jail on 1 September 2002, and so was tried in absentia.
The trial lasted from mid-November 2002 until 31 January 2003. Anibalzinho was
rearrested by the South African police on 30 January, and was deported to Maputo
just hours after judge Paulino had delivered his sentence.

At the time, Anibalzinho's lawyer,
Simeao Cuamba, requested a retrial, and Paulino turned the request down.

In a dispatch dated 10 February 2003,
Paulino argued that Cuamba had shown no legal basis for a retrial. He pointed
out that Anibalzinho had disappeared from prison on the eve of the trial, after
all appeals against the case going to trial had failed. Anibalzinho knew full
well that he faced trial for crimes that carry the maximum prison sentence.
But rather than defend himself, he decided to flee the country. In such cases,
Paulino said, the right to a retrial under the Penal Procedural Code does not
apply - such a right could only be exercised by people tried in absentia, if
they had never been jailed in the first place.

Under this argument, if Anibalzinho
had been at liberty, failed to obey a summons, and was then tried in absentia,
there would have been a case for a retrial.

The Supreme Court disagrees with
Paulino's interpretation of this article in the Code and believes that all accused
persons tried in absentia, and sentenced to jail terms of two years or more,
have the right to a retrial.

Hence the Supreme Court has upheld
Cuamba's appeal against Paulino's dispatch of 10 February 2003.

Although the ruling was only issued
on 21 December, the Supreme Court took this decision over a week ago - i.e.
before the Canadian immigration authorities ordered the deportation of Anibalzinho,
who has been living in a Toronto detention centre since his second escape, on
9 May this year.

The World Bank signed on 16 December
the final agreement with the Mozambican government to grant a loan of $110 million
for improvement in the country's railway system.

Of this sum, $104.5 million are earmarked
for the rebuilding of the Sena line, that links the port city of Beira to the
coal mines of Moatize, in the western province of Tete, while the remaining
$5.5 million are to be used for the institutional empowerment of the publicly
owned Mozambican ports and rail company, CFM.

The rehabilitation of parts of the
second railway in the central region, the Machipanda line, which runs from Beira
to Zimbabwe, will be financed in full ($55 million) by Rites and Ircon International,
the Indian consortium that won the tender to manage the Beira railway system.

Thus the total undertaking is budgeted
at $165 million, to be used in the reconstruction or rehabilitation of infrastructures,
the purchasing of equipment and the installation of telecommunications and security
systems.

During the ceremony, both Mozambican
Transport Minister Tomas Salomao and the representative of the World Bank, Michael
Baxter, stressed the importance of the Sena line in the economic development
of the central region of the country.

The World Health Organisation (WHO)
on 10 December handed over in Maputo a donation of equipment to the "Roll
Back Malaria" initiative to support the fight against this disease in Mozambique.
The donation consists of a four wheel drive vehicle, a package of 14,000 mosquito
nets, 10 insecticide spraying pumps, and 10 microscopes.

The WHO representative in Mozambique,
Bofar Toure, said during the ceremony that "we hope that other partners
will make contributions to the 'Roll Back Malaria' initiative as a means to
help reduce the impact of the disease on the most vulnerable communities".

He noted that his organisation's
gesture should not be taken as a final response to help the initiative cater
for the most vulnerable people, but is just a signal for other partners to join
in.

Toure said that this donation fulfils
a promise made by the organisation's regional director, Ibrahim Samba, when
he visited Mozambique to take part in the African Union summit in July last
year. "He was impressed with the work done by the Mozambican initiative
in the fight against malaria, and decided to give his support, and I am very
happy to deliver it", said Toure.

He noted that malaria is a very serious
public health problem, that calls for the involvement of all national and international
partners for its eradication.

Minister of Public Works, Roberto
White, on 30 November reiterated the government's commitment to reduce the water
supply deficit, not only in urban centres, but even in the country's most remote
rural areas.

He was speaking in Maputo's Ferroviario
neighbourhood, at the ceremony laying the first stone for a rehabilitation and
expansion of the city's water system. The government's Water Assets and Investment
Fund (FIPAG), after an international public tender, has contracted the Chinese
company, the China Metallurgical Construction Corporation, to undertake the
work, which will increase the city's capacity to treat water from 120,000 to
144,000 cubic metres a day.

By building a new water distribution
centre in the Laulane neighbourhood, and expanding the existing one at Maxaquene,
the storage capacity will rise from 150,000 to 190,000 cubic metres.

The distribution network will expand
to areas in the northeast of the city so far not touched by the distribution
network, making piped water available for a further 200,000 people. The project
is due to be completed in 19 months.

White pointed out that, despite significant
investments made over the past decade, currently only 38 per cent of Maputo's
population is served by the public network.

The same network also serves the
adjacent city of Matola, and the district of Boane. Currently 81,000 homes and
establishments and 438 public standpipes are linked to the network, serving
a total of 650,000 inhabitants in Maputo, Matola and Boane.

The Mayor of Maputo, Eneas Comiche,
told the ceremony that this project showed that the City Council was complying
with the manifesto on which he was elected in 2003. "Aware of the importance
of water in the struggle against diseases such as cholera, we have decided to
expand and improve the supply system in the north of the municipality",
he said.

President Joaquim Chissano on 20
December called for further aid from the developed world to allow Mozambique
to win its battle against poverty.

Speaking at the traditional end-of-year
reception for the diplomatic corps, the last that he will give as head of state,
President Chissano declared "Your cooperation will be crucial for attaining
our objectives. An injection of further resources through Official Development
Aid, or through pardoning our foreign debt, could shorten the distance that
separates us from our goals. It could help speed up the pace of reducing poverty
levels. It could help attain our common undertaking, the Millennium Development
Goals".

President Chissano urged an end to
barriers against Mozambican trade. He stressed that, if the doors of international
markets were thrown open to Mozambican produce, "that could mean more resources
for the economy, which will lead to greater levels of saving and investments".

Increased aid, he told the diplomats,
would empower the Mozambican state so that it could "invest in infrastructures,
in services and in human resources", thus turning the country into "a
pole of attraction for private investment, both domestic and foreign".

President Chissano reviewed his 18
years as head of state. He noted the desperate situation in which he took power
in 1986, after the country's first President, Samora Machel, had been murdered
by the apartheid military in a plane crash at Mbuzini, just inside South Africa.

The country was suffering from the
war of destabilisation "which had reached unequalled levels of cruelty".
Fear of attack meant that people could no longer "sleep in their homes
or go to their fields". On the roads, "they were either ambushed and
murdered, or were the victims of land mines".

Under those circumstances peace became
"a national imperative", since only with peace was there any hope
of rescuing the people from their "misery and extreme poverty". So
the government embarked on the peace negotiations with the apartheid-backed
Renamo rebels, "in which our patience, tolerance and perseverance were
tested to the limit".

"It was not easy to convince
the people of the need to enter into dialogue with those who had ripped open
their mothers or wives, those who had cut off lips or other parts of their victims",
President Chissano added. "We explained that it was precisely because they
committed such atrocities that it was necessary to speak to them, to awaken
their conscience so that they would stop committing them and rejoin society".

The president said the government
resisted the adoption of formulas used to solve conflicts elsewhere, insisting
that Mozambican reality had to be dealt with on its own terms.

International support for the Mozambican
peace negotiations, he said, "was like a catalyst - that chemical substance
that speeds up reactions without interfering".

After the October 1992 peace accord
with Renamo, resources had to be mobilised to rebuild the country, laying the
necessary material bases for economic development. At the same time, pluralist
democracy was expressed "through a frank and free debate of ideas".

Strong economic growth followed,
despite the setbacks of major flooding in 2000 and 2001. "The twelve years
of peace have completely changed the image of our country inside and beyond
its borders", said Chissano.

Once the image had been one of "desperate,
starving and displaced people", but now it was one of "rapid economic
and social development".

Peace was now rooted in Mozambican
culture, President Chissano argued. "To be a Mozambican is to be in favour
of peace", he argued. "Any Mozambican not in favour of peace has an
incomplete Mozambican identity". That was why Mozambique was always available
to assist in the search for solutions to other conflicts, and why Mozambican
peace keepers are currently deployed in Burundi and Sudan.

"But our best contribution remains
the peace we have managed to build internally", said Chissano. "It's
an example that it is possible to emerge from a war, cure the wounds, and, stone
by stone, build a new day, advancing towards a more prosperous country".

2005 - year of hope

President Chissano stated that 2005
will be a year of hope, marked by the start of major projects in various areas
of the country's life.

He stressed that the coming year
will see work begin on bridges over the Zambezi, Limpopo, Incomati and Lugela
rivers. Of these, the most important is the planned bridge over the Zambezi
at Caia, which is a key part of the country's north-south highway. It should
have been built over two decades ago, but the apartheid regime's war of destabilisation
made it impossible to implement the initial plans.

2005 should also see a revival of
the coal mining industry, as the Brazilian mining giant, Companhia Vale do Rio
Doce (CVRD), begins its investment at Moatize in Tete province. At the same
time, the Indian consortium, Rites and Ircon International, will press ahead
with rebuilding the Sena railway, from Moatize to the port of Beira, which is
crucial if coal exports are to resume on any substantial scale.

But President Chissano warned of
the dangers posed to the country by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Current figures indicate
that about 14.5 per cent of Mozambicans aged between 15 and 49 are HIV-positive.
This situation, Chissano said, was "a national emergency", and he
urged redoubled efforts in preventing the spread of the disease.

This is a condensed version of the
AIM daily news service - for details contact aim@tvcabo.co.mz